Money day in Canada: Nation kills pennies as coins spill across highway

Under different circumstances, this might be some sort of crazy viral stunt. On the same day Bloomberg reported Canada will soon kill pennies from circulation, a freak accident sent millions of dollars in Canadian coins flying across a highway.

First, the pennies: Bloomberg says Canada’s 2012 budget calls for their complete elimination. The pennies cost 1.6 cents each to make, and the elimination will save Canadians $11 million annually. Finance minister Jim Flaherty may have echoed many North Americans’ thoughts when he said “Pennies take up too much space on our dressers at home.” Definitely.

Meanwhile, in northeastern Ontario, a Brinks truck got in an accident that caused $5 million in Canadian coins to spill across a highway. A police constable told the CBC the tractor-trailer hit a “rock cut” that “acted as a can opener and peeled off the side of the trailer.” The coins, originally from the Canadian mint, carpeted the ground so it felt “like walking on a carpet of loonies and toonies, sometimes ankle deep.”

The video shows a giant magnet being used to pick up the “loonies,” or $1 coins.